This November, Dark Horse put out a the graphic novel the Shepherd’s Tale. It provided us Browncoats with the long awaited back story of Shepherd Book. While it was interesting to finally find out what he was hiding, and it was a well written story, it didn’t really feel like an installment of Firefly, since most of the crew only appeared in a couple of pages. When I think of Firefly, the first thing I think of is the fun of spending time with the nine, very distinct, people living aboard Serenity. Well Shepherd’s Tale writer, Zack Whedon, has given us just, that in an online only, eight page comic called Serenity: Downtime.

Surprisingly it is available on USA Today’s website, along with a brief introductory article about Firefly/Serenity. It is awesome! It feels very much like an episode of Firefly. It even has close ups of River’s feet! Here is a little blurb about the comic.

Whedon has tried to create an atmosphere resembling a scene from Firefly. “I wanted to reward those fans by showing these characters like it was a part of the show,” he says.

Downtime follows crewmembers snowed in on a planet filled with, as Whedon puts it, “a bunch of people you don’t want to run into.” Though the whole crew is included, the focus is on the mysterious (and fan-favorite) character known as River.